Any pilot flying holidaymakers between Manchester and Ibiza must be prepared for outlandish sights.

But perhaps nothing so apparently unworldly as this.

The captain of a Thomas Cook airliner flying tourists back from the Spanish holiday island to the north of England reported a “near miss” with a “rugby ball”-shaped UFO, which passed within feet of his jet.

The encounter, over Reading, Berks, was reported to the aviation authorities, who launched an investigation. But no earthly identity for the object could be established.